“BRAND OLD LOVE” (A Sunday Essay and playlist)

8/24/2025

“BRAND OLD LOVE” (A Sunday Essay and playlist)

Exactly 100 of us were privileged to be treated this week to a sold out and inspiring gig from an unlikely source!

How group member Shawn (our local extraordinaire tour promoter) managed to persuade long time indie artist LOU BARLOW 🇺🇸 to play at the METEOR last Wednesday night is beyond me.

But he did.

LOU BARLOW, rex
(NOTE- Group member SYX of “Spinning Stories” fame in the background)

LOU BARLOW has been at the forefront of indie music since his first stint with the band DINOSAUR JR. in the mid 80’s.

He and the other DINO noble, J. MASCIS, have had an on/off again musical deal over the years.

This has allowed LOU the ability to record prodigiously and influentially under numerous banners. Most significantly those are; SEBADOH (with JASON LOEWENSTEIN, ERIC GAFFNEY), SENTRIDOH (mostly home recorded versions of SEBADOH songs), as well the commercially successful FOLK IMPLOSION (with JOHN DAVIS) and as well, as a solo artist.

I won’t go into much more detail, but if you are not familiar with this indie legend, I have fashioned a playlist attached at the end of this post that will take care of that.

I hope this playlist that will give both the serious BARLOW devotee and any newcomers some satisfaction.

With one small exception, each of the songs on the playlist is from a different “LOU BARLOW” release.

LOU was travelling on this mini- tour with his wife ADELLE (a knitwear artist) and their young daughter, Izetta.

ADELLE advised that they run a website from their home in NW Massachusetts. It has a classic New England name- @thebarlowfamilygeneralstore.

Check it out on Instagram.

Anyway, the gig was superb. LOU played many great tracks, honoured many requests (including mine) and kibitzed with us. He was very touched by the turnout he had received at 4 Ontario venues. Here is what he said.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/017iuL-GX-YBAetcC7y7IogKA

The song I requested was the last he played before the hilarious encore set up.

I call “Brand New Love” one of my “C90 songs.” (Ergo the cheeky title of this post- “Brand Old Love.”)

That is, if we ever have to depart from planet earth, and I am only allowed one C90 cassette tape to go on the spaceship, “Brand New Love” by SEBADOH would be one of the songs on that singular C90 tape.

Here it is:

Firstly, live from the gig (sound is not great). Then there is a live YouTube video with the full band and then a studio version on SPOTIFY.

Finally I have curated a 23 track SPOTIFY playlist called “Uncle Lou Plays For You.” (He referred to himself that way during the gig.)

Enjoy!

i) Live at Meteor

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0c9hMXuPp8bBOSlmzelZr6I_g

ii) Live with SEBADOH:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fvWajdDp0cc&pp=ygUWc2ViYWRvaCBicmFuZCBuZXcgbGl2ZQ%3D%3D

SPOTIFY-

https://open.spotify.com/track/7mm0gFLDMKale6GdCNLSZc?si=68HWhUgYRVmUEzRSeAfMMA

(SONG 1187)

Play Lou Or Perish!